A Mother-Daughter Book Club: A Search for Intimacy

This study examines the nature of group interaction and response to texts in an African American, mother-daughter literature discussion group in a predominately White, Midwestern college town. The implications of this research for teachers and librarians include a discussion about the value of community and intergenerational literacy and adolescents’ need to share literacy events with adults from their own racialized group.     

Disciplinary representation on institutional websites: changing knowledge,changing power?

This paper analyses shifts in the representation of history and physics as named organisational units on Australian university websites over the last 15 years in the context of broader questions about the production of knowledge in contemporary times. It derives from a broader project concerned with disciplinarity, changing university contexts and emerging conceptions of teaching and research. The paper points to a significant reduction in the number of departments and departmental webpages dedicated solely to those disciplines and the greater obscurity of disciplinary knowledge on the websites as a result. It suggests these findings are one symbolic sign of some changes in progress in universities, including a reduced strength of disciplinary voice in broader university management, some shift away from disciplines as the key reference points for knowledge production and some de-centring of their traditional strength in the academic labour market. The study also points to the methodological challenges of working with online sources of evidence.     

Online graduate students’ perceptions of best learning experiences

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of online master’s students regarding their best learning experiences. The authors surveyed 86 graduate students concerning what helped them learn in the online environment. Results indicate that although graduate students learned using the same technological tools as undergraduates, they desired a deeper level of learning that requires more instructional forethought and planning. Student experiences were consistent with the constructivist theory, and implications for improving teaching based upon the constructivist theory are highlighted.     

Minimizing the Influence of Item Parameter Estimation Errors in Test Development: A Comparison of Three Selection Procedures

In test development, item response theory (IRT) is a method to determine the amount of information that each item (i.e., item information function) and combination of items (i.e., test information function) provide in the estimation of an examinee's ability. Studies investigating the effects of item parameter estimation errors over a range of ability have demonstrated an overestimation of information when the most discriminating items are selected (i.e., item selection based on maximum information). In the present study, the authors examined the influence of item parameter estimation errors across 3 item selection methods—maximum no target, maximum target, and theta maximum—using the 2- and 3-parameter logistic IRT models. Tests created with the maximum no target and maximum target item selection procedures consistently overestimated the test information function. Conversely, tests created using the theta maximum item selection procedure yielded more consistent estimates of the test information function and, at times, underestimated the test information function. Implications for test development are discussed.     

Developing young children's multidigit number sense

Enrichment for mathematically gifted students in the elementary school needs to extend beyond puzzles or busywork and support the development of mathematical power through a differentiated curriculum. This article describes a series of enrichment experiences that were designed to develop young gifted children's understanding of large numbers, which was central to their investigation of space travel. Although large numbers are not traditionally included in the mathematics curriculum for young children, the children in this group responded enthusiastically to the enrichment experiences. These experiences provided the children with an opportunity to understand the large numbers they encountered in science resource material and to develop their mathematical power.     

Goodness of Fit Between Children and Classrooms: Effects of Child Temperament and Preschool Classroom Quality on Achievement Trajectories

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine whether child temperament differentially predicted academic school readiness depending on the quality of classroom interactions for 179 Head Start preschoolers. Teachers rated children's temperament as overcontrolled, resilient, or undercontrolled in the fall and reported on children's language/literacy and math skills continuously throughout the year. Observations of classroom emotional and instructional support were conducted in the spring. Results from multilevel models indicated that overcontrolled children (compared to resilient children) made greater math gains in classrooms with higher instructional support, whereas a trend-level effect suggested that undercontrolled children (compared to resilient children) made lower math gains in classrooms with lower emotional support. Results also showed that resilient children's gains in language/literacy were more positively associated with high emotional support than were the scores of overcontrolled children. Practice or Policy: This study adds to prior findings suggesting that overcontrolled and undercontrolled children need special attention in the preschool classroom. Teachers and administrators may want to carefully consider the effect that classroom interactions and instructional techniques have on individual children and attempt to tailor instruction to meet the individual needs of children within classrooms.     

Accessing,Integrating, and Inhibiting Word Meaning in Poor Comprehenders

This study examined three processes crucial to reading comprehension (semantic access, integration, and inhibition) to identify causes of comprehension impairment. Poor comprehenders were compared to chronological-age controls and vocabulary-age (VA) controls. When listening to homonym primes (“bank”) versus unrelated primes, controls were faster to name pictures related to dominant (money) and subordinate (river) meanings at 250 ms interstimulus interval (ISI) but only showed dominant priming at 1,000 ms ISI, whereas poor comprehenders only showed dominant priming. When listening to subordinately biased sentences ending in homonyms (“John fished from the bank”) versus control sentences, all groups showed priming when naming subordinate (appropriate) pictures at 250 ms ISI: VA controls and poor comprehenders also showed priming when naming dominant (inappropriate) pictures. At 1,000 ms ISI, controls showed appropriate priming, whereas poor comprehenders only showed inappropriate priming. These findings suggest that poor comprehenders have difficulties accessing subordinate word meanings, which can manifest as a failure to inhibit irrelevant information.     

Mature and younger students' reasons for making the transition from further education into higher education

This paper reviews findings from a longitudinal study of students making the transition from FE to an ancient university. This paper compares the younger and older students' reasons for higher education study. Our analysis of the quantitative data suggests that the older students had different reasons for entering university. We use the qualitative data to investigate the meanings participants attributed to higher education study in order to make sense of the patterns in the quantitative data, drawing on Wenger's perspectives on identity development as encompassing participants' trajectories in relation to communities of practice. The findings show a positive picture of the motivations of the whole cohort but the mature students seemed to have a particularly rich understanding of the meaning and relevance of their studies. The study therefore has implications for policy-makers and teachers as they seek to make use of the positive aspects of greater diversity.